A Libyan rebel fighter takes a souvenir photograph at Gaddafi compound. (Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)
NY Times:
During the six months of fighting, both the rebels and Colonel Qaddafi’s forces repeatedly overstated or misrepresented their battlefield abilities and accomplishments. The rebels said they had seized cities, only to be pushed back hours or days later; on Tuesday, Colonel Qaddafi’s forces insisted that they controlled Tripoli. In the early days of the NATO intervention, optimistic claims about the rebels’ capacities and battlefield gains seemed intended to reassure queasy domestic audiences that a quick victory was possible.
Claiming you hold a town, when you do, is not a lie. It doesn't matter if you get pushed out hours or days later. The rebels hadn't claimed they had won the war. They claimed they controlled a piece of territory at that moment.
But hey, false equivalency is the hallmark of a lazy reporter or pundit. So claiming you hold territory you end up losing at a later date is just as much of a "lie" as Gaddafi claiming it held Tripoli when, quite obviously and objectively, he did not. I'm sure there are plenty of instances of bullshit misinformation from the rebel side, but this sure as hell doesn't qualify.